Advanced Nonlinear Analysis and Multi-Physics solver
Marc is a Finite Element Analysis solver that excels at Advanced Nonlinear Analysis. Because of the nonlinear capabilities and robust nature of Marc, it is used for a wide range of analysis types and even used as a solver in third-party software.
Mentat is the Pre- and Post-processor that is developed specifically for Marc.
The following sections provide an overview of some of the capabilities of Marc.
Contact
Marc comes with highly regarded contact algorithms resulting in accurate and robust solutions of contact problems. It allows contact between solid-, shell- and beam-elements, and can also include rigid surfaces to make contact with deformable contact bodies.
For shell elements, contact can be occur on either the mid-plane or the outer faces by taking into account thickness and offset of the shell elements.
For beam elements, contact takes the cross-sectional shape and offset into consideration with contact occurring on the outer and inner faces of the beam section. Contact on the inside of a beam allows modelling a beam inside a beam, an efficient way to model a sleeved-cable.
The following is an example showing contact between the different element types:
Results: Full model deformation
Input model: Solid and Shell elements
Input model: Beam Elements
Input model: Beam Elements including outline shape and offset
The following material models are available for Marc:
Elastic-Plastic (Isotropic, Orthotropic and Anisotropic)
Hypo Elastic
Hyper Elastic
Foam
Shape Memory
Composite
Rebar
Many of these have additional optional properties. A small sample possible additional properties are:
Visco-Elasticity
Visco-Plasticity
Creep
Damage / Failure / Cracking
Thermal Expansion
Cure Shrinkage
Damping
Remeshing
Marc can update the mesh during an analysis. This is useful in cases where either a finer mesh is required in a local region or when the elements become too distorted during an analysis.
The following examples mesh refinement in a local region and re-meshing to avoid excessive distortion:
Local Mesh Refinement:
Remeshing:
Crack Propagation
Marc has multiple methods to calculate Stress Intensity or Energy Release Rate, two quantities used to predict crack propagation rate. Combined with Marc's Remeshing capability, it allows modelling crack growth to determine how the crack will grow as well as how quickly.
Crack Propagation:
Additional methods are available to model a range of other crack-growth types of problems, including delamination of composite materials.
Delamination:
Multi-Physics Simulation
In addition to Structural Analysis, Marc can perform a range of additional analysis types. This includes Thermal-, Acoustic-, Electric- (i.e. Current), Electrostatic-, Magnetic- and Diffusion-Analysis.
Multi-Physics refers to analysis that combines more than one analysis type. This can be done either in a single solver or by combining software. Many of Marc's analysis types can be combined in a single analysis - Examples include Thermal + Structural, Thermal + Structural + Electrical, Magnetic + Thermal + Structural, Structural + Acoustic.
In addition, Marc can couple with external solvers to model physics that is not inherent to Marc's capabilities. The most common external solvers are CFD solvers such as scFlow to model fluid-structure interaction, Rigid-Body-Dynamics software like Adams to model one or more nonlinear components in a mechanical system or with Micro-Mechanical software like Digimat that can model the microscopic material behavior of Composites for accurate prediction of composite behavior and failure progression.
The following shows some examples of Multi-Physics models solved with Marc or with Marc coupled to an external solver:
Induction Heating
Magnetic/Thermal/Structural Analysis solved in Marc
Current Actuator
Current/Thermal/Structural Analysis solved in Marc
Carburizing of Steel
Thermal/Structural/Diffusion Analysis solved in Marc
